I recently completed a blog which included the Greatest Players of All-Time in every position ( iconicfootball.weebly.com if interested ) , so I thought I would share some lists here and see what people think.
I will post my explanation underneath the list as I’ve already done similar posts.
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The Top 100 Goalkeepers of All-Time
(Platinum V)
1 Lev Yashin RUS
(Gold II)
2 Gianluigi Buffon ITA
3 Dino Zoff ITA
4 Manuel Neuer GER
(Gold III)
5 Oliver Kahn GER
6 Gordon Banks ENG
7 Peter Schmeichel DEN
8 Iker Casillias SPA
9 Sepp Maier GER
10 Ricardo Zamora SPA
11 Peter Shilton ENG
12 Ubaldo Fillol ARG
(Gold IV)
13 Jean-Marie Pfaff BEL
14 Pat Jennings NIR
15 František Plánička CZE
16 Rinat Dasayev RUS
17 Petr Cech CZE
18 Edwin Van Der Sar NET
19 Walter Zenga ITA
20 Gianpiero Combi ITA
21 Michel Preud’homme BEL
22 Jurgen Croy GER
23 Gilmar BRA
24 Vladimir Beara CRO
25 Ladislao Mazurkiewicz URU
26 Gyula Grosics HUN
27 Thibaut Courtois BEL
28 David De Gea SPA
29 Toni Schumacher GER
30 Jose Luis Chilavert PAR
(Gold V)
31 Ivo Viktor CZE
32 Enrico Albertosi ITA
33 Andoni Zubizarreta SPA
34 Amadeo Carrizo ARG
35 Alisson Becker BRA
36 Neville Southall WAL
37 Jose Angel Iribar SPA
38 Gianluca Pagliuca ITA
39 Ronnie Hellstrom SWE
40 Angelo Peruzzi ITA
41 Thomas Ravelli SWE
42 Emerson Leao BRA
43 Bert Trautman GER
44 Heinrich Stuhlfauth GER
45 Hans Van Breukelen NET
46 Giuliano Sarti ITA
47 Rudi Hiden AUT
48 Ray Clemence ENG
49 Luis Arconada SPA
50 Hans Tilkowsi GER
51 Claudio Taffarel BRA
52 Francesco Toldo ITA
53 Roque Maspoli URU
54 Andreas Kopke GER
55 Americo Tesoriere ARG
56 Jan Tomaszewski POL
57 Jan Oblak SVE
58 Frank Swift ENG
59 Antoni Ramallets SPA
(Silver I)
60 Yevhen Rudakov RUS
61 Jan Van Bereven NET
62 Julio Cesar BRA
63 Vitor Baia POR
64 Sergio Livingstone CHI
65 Sam Hardy ENG
66 David Seaman ENG
67 Walter Zeman AUT
68 Luciano Castellini ITA
69 Józef Młynarczyk POL
70 Antonio Roma ARG
71 Marc-Andre Ter Stegen GER
72 Viliam Schrojf SVA
73 Hugo Gatti ARG
74 Karoly Zsak HUN
75 Franjo Glaser CRO
76 Stefano Tacconi ITA
77 Fabio Cuducini ITA
78 Thomas N’Kono CAM
79 Toni Turek GER
80 Jens Lehmann GER
81 Rodolfo Rodriguez URU
82 Moacir Barbosa BRA
83 Manga BRA
84 Ferenc Plattko HUN
85 Agustin Cejas ARG
86 Aldo Oliveri ITA
87 Lorenzo Buffon ITA
88 Franco Tancredi ITA
89 Dida BRA
90 Andres Mazali URU
91 Valerio Bacigalupo ITA
92 Fabien Barthez FRA
93 Manuel Bento POR
94 Hans Jakob GER
95 Antonio Carbajal MEX
96 Milutin Soskic KOS
97 Santiago Canizares SPA
98 Costa Pereira POR
99 Hugo Lloris FRA
100 Bodo Illgner GER
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Honourable Mentions:
Jorge Campos MEX
Ivan Curkovic BOS
Vitor Damas POR
Ederson BRA
Samir Handanovic SVE
Marcos BRA
Keylor Navas COS
Karl Oskar-Svensson SWE
Christian Piot BEL
Rustu Recber TUR
Leigh Richmond Roose WAL
‘World-Class’ Goalkeepers by Nation (Gold/Platinum)
9 - Germany, Italy
7 - Spain
4 - Brazil, England
3 - Argentina, Brazil, Czech Republic
2 - Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Uruguay
1 - Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Northern Ireland, Paraguay, Poland, Slovenia, Wales
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Explanation:
It goes without saying, the assessment of the players I use will never be as accurate as seeing them play live. I have however put a few years of research into this and refined it as well as I can with the data and opinions available.
I’ve used a range of factors, which culminates in an assessment of players that I believe works well. Maybe most importantly, it has an accurate correlation to my opinion of players when using it to evaluate players from the modern era, so I trust my research methods.
The evaluation of players is generally based on a players peak over a 4-5 year period. In my opinion, this period is long enough to assess a player’s standard, and exhibits a certain level of consistency. However, a long (or short) peak can add to how highly I would rate a player, if they show themselves to be adaptable (or not) to different tactical systems, opponents, levels of pressure, their own physical changes, etc.
Some of the main factors of assessing players (some which play into each other) :
- Historical match ratings from the eras, from all sources possible (usually newspapers pre-internet)
- Historical statistical based rankings (eg. IFFHS)
- All reputable/respected opinionated lists/data I could find (eg. World Soccer)
- All reputable nominations I could find (eg. FIFPRO)
- Watching footage
- Trophies won
- World XI’s/Individual Award Rankings (many different forms/sources)
- Other fan opinion from the era (eg. Forums, articles, ex-players)
- Special consultants and researchers
- My own opinion
- Many other smaller factors
These factors can all be weighted differently depending on the standard of competition, which I evaluated as accurately as I could. Of course, there’s some controversy comparing players from different eras, some may favour modern players who are much faster, stronger, fitter; while some may favour older players who dealt with two-footed tackles, terrible pitches, & innovated aspects of the game. The idea of throwing players into different eras wouldn’t work well, so I found it best to judge them on what they are/were relevant to the time.
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The Ratings:
I finalised the assessment of each player with a rating to help me categorise and organise them. There are 3 ranks, Platinum, Gold & Silver, with a level of I-V (roman numerals) within each rank, I being the highest. There would also be ranks below, but they were not needed for this.
Generally speaking:
Platinum V is the minimum level as an ‘All-Time Great’ player
Gold V is the minimum level as a ‘World-Class’ player
Silver V is the minimum level for a ‘Good’ player (perhaps someone who can be a regular in a top-level league)
However, these definitions can vary from person to person. I find that the term ‘World-Class’ for example is used more often for players in positions that have a lower standard of player, but I wanted to keep it more consistent. For example, the best right-back in the world may not always be one of the best players in the world. The standard in certain positions can also shift across decades - there’s no rule for the minimum or maximum number of world-class players in a single position at once.
I might have missed him but Elisha Scott is a shout for someone who could be on here. I don’t know how you could put him on here because there’s like no footage and going of people’s accounts and his achievements is limited but he was a legendary goalkeeper for Liverpool back in the early days, if it was possible to get some idea of how good he was he might well crack the top 100
Valdes not even among the honourable mentions? Ridiculous
allison should at least be higher than de gea
I’m incredibly biased, but Neville Southall was genuinely the best goalkeeper in the world for about 5-6 years. I think he should be top 30 for sure. Certainly above Chilavert and De Gea.
This deserves to be top comment.
Conversely, I think Shilton is wildly overrated. If their positions were reversed I’d have no problem with this list
Alisson 35th 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣